Recently deemed “one of the decade’s more gifted, up-and-coming modern classical composers” (Pitchfork), “a potentially significant voice on the American music landscape” (David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer), and “an important representative of 21st century trends in composition (New York Classical Review), composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “haunting,” (The Los Angeles Times), and “strikingly beautiful” (Time Out New York). With an ear for the poetic and the architectural, Snider’s music draws upon a variety of influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling. Of her orchestral song cycle, Penelope, Pitchfork‘s Jayson Greene proclaimed: “Snider’s music lives in…an increasingly populous inter-genre space that, as of yet, has produced only a few clear, confident voices. Snider is perhaps the most sophisticated of them all.”

January 2020 will see the commercial release of Snider’s third full-length album, Mass for the Endangered. Performed by Trinity Wall Street Choir and NOVUS NY under the direction of Julian Wachner, the album will be co-produced by esteemed choral conductor Gabriel Crouch and Snider, and engineered by Andrew Mellor. Other forthcoming commercial recordings of Snider’s work include Something for the Dark, recorded by the North Carolina Symphony for release TBD; You Are Free and Thread and Fray, recorded by Latitude 49 for release TBD; Ballade, recorded by pianist Nicholas Phillips for release on Blue Griffin Records in 2020; and The Reserved, the Reticent, a solo cello piece recorded by Caitlin Sullivan, for release on New Amsterdam Records in 2019.

In addition to her work as a composer, Snider is a passionate advocate for new music in New York and beyond. From 2001 to 2007, she co-curated the Look & Listen Festival, a new music series set in modern art galleries. Since 2007 she has served as Co-Director, along with William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein, of New Amsterdam Records, a Brooklyn-based independent record label recently called “the focal point of the post-classical scene,” (Time Out New York) and “emblematic of an emerging generation” (The New York Times), and praised for “releasing one quality disc after another” (Newsweek). In 2011, New Amsterdam created a separate, non-profit organization for its presenting work; in 2017, New Amsterdam revamped its model to function as an all-in-one non-profit record label, presenter, and artist service organization.